


How Bucky Barnes Stole The Sun

by Spitshine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Because I am Incorrigible, M/M, Nat is a good bro, Native American Mythology - Freeform, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Porn in Next Chapter, manic pixie dream steve, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:44:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5784133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spitshine/pseuds/Spitshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of a myth of various tribes of the Pacific Northwest, starring Red Skull as Grey Eagle, Bucky as Raven, and lil Stevie as the Sun.</p>
<p>
  <i>He opened the wrong door and a rich golden light spilled out, thick as honey in the darkened hall, and he was nearly blinded by the brightness of it all.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Squinting into the brilliance bursting from the barely-open door, Bucky tried to work out what he was seeing. A slip of a man, almost a boy, really, ivory and gold, glowing from within. Cloud-white skin, fire-yellow hair, eyes as blue as the sky on the clear summer mornings Bucky still remembered from childhood, back in the days before the world went dark, when his days were carefree and endless and full of games with his best friend—</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Stevie?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Bucky Barnes Stole The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the flashfic meme over at http://mcuflashmeme.dreamwidth.org/1389.html and while there is a concluding (and porny) chapter on its way, I wanted to make sure to get this out before the deadline. I am most proud of the fact that I wrote in one shot before my battery died, which means, probably, less than an hour.

Bucky hadn’t meant to do it, hadn’t meant to do any of it. He hadn’t particularly wanted to go to the celebratory dinner Red Skull had held in his honor, even, but he was the most celebrated warrior in the land, and even if Red Skull wasn’t the ruthless ruler Bucky knew him to be, these things were expected of him.

So he’d gritted his teeth and sharpened his pitons and climbed the dome of the sky to Red Skull’s home, prepared to make small talk with people who called him “James,” or worse, “Sergeant Barnes,” people he didn’t much care for, people who had no respect for him as a man—only as a fighter.

A killer.

He hadn’t wanted that, either.

It was late in the evening, the other guests mostly dispersed—tired or drunk or both—when Bucky wandered the winding halls of Red Skull’s ostentatious home in search of a place to relieve himself.

He opened the wrong door.

He’d opened many wrong doors, by then, looking for a chamberpot or a courtyard or even a basket of dirty laundry, growing less and less picky as he got more and more desperate.

This one was different.

He opened the wrong door and a rich golden light spilled out, thick as honey in the darkened hall, and he was nearly blinded by the brightness of it all.

Squinting into the brilliance bursting from the barely-open door, Bucky tried to work out what he was seeing. A slip of a man, almost a boy, really, ivory and gold*, glowing from within. Cloud-white skin, fire-yellow hair, eyes as blue as the sky on the clear summer mornings Bucky still remembered from childhood, back in the days before the world went dark, when his days were carefree and endless and full of games with his best friend—

“Stevie?”

The boy—the man, a year older than Bucky himself, even if he was slight as a youth still—looked up from his drawing. His look of surprise was quickly replaced by dawning comprehension, and just as quickly split by a grin of genuine, guileless joy.

Bucky hadn’t seen such an honest look on anyone’s face since the day the earth had gone dark, two decades ago, the day he’d gone to see Stevie and had been told his friend was too sick to play. Too sick to recover.

“B-buck?”

Bucky’s voice was stuck halfway between laughter and tears, breathy and wet. “Yeah. Yeah, pal. It’s me. I thought you were—it doesn’t matter. Let’s get you out of here, huh?”

Steve’s words spilled over each other like water rushing through rapids. “I can’t—the doors are all iron, I can’t swing them, he never lets me-”

“Hey. None of that. We’ll catch up later. For now… you know where there’s a side door, maybe?” Steve nodded and Bucky smirked, unconsciously flexing his arms a bit in his the sleeves of his dress uniform. No door on earth would be too heavy for him. “Then we got this, buddy. You and me, come on.”

Steve stood up, finally, and crossed the small room to Bucky in three quick steps, and then they were running, neck and neck down the long hallways, Steve forcing the air out of his struggling lungs to gasp, “Right. Now left, through that… hidden… door, behind the… tapestry,” Bucky worrying Steve’s breathing would give out before they reached the exit.

Luck was with them.

Almost.

It was the last stretch, a straight shot of slick stone-floored hallway before they reached their goal, the door Steve had assured Bucky led to a low-walled courtyard, when Red Skull turned the corner at the far end of the hall, chattering with false joviality with a last lingering handful of guests.

It was clear the man didn’t fully comprehend the situation at first, but neither did it take him long to put two and two together. “Ah, James, there y—get them. _Get them now!_ ”

Bucky put on a final burst of speed, grabbing Steve’s thin right wrist in his left hand as he went. The skin under his fingers was hot, hotter than anyone should be, but Bucky pushed that to back of his mind. Steve had always been sickly, maybe he had a fever, but all that could wait. Must wait. He crashed into the heavy door with his full momentum, kicking it shut a split-second after he propelled them both through it and into the infinite dark of the courtyard outside.

But it wasn’t dark. Not any longer.

For the first time in nearly twenty years, brilliant daylight cut through the endless night. The sky shone clear and blue.

Bucky didn’t have time to gawk.

He hefted Steve up over one shoulder and vaulted the stone wall of the courtyard to the enraged shouts of Red Skull in the distance, but Bucky wasn’t worried. He knew Red Skull had a strange magic, one that had taken his skin and enhanced his strength, his speed, but nothing could touch Bucky. There was a reason he was the most sung-of warrior his people had ever known, after all.

He didn’t bother to put Stevie down as he sprinted to the trail of pitons he’d left when he climbed the dome earlier that night, only shifted him more securely into the grip of his left arm and bit his teeth against the pain.

“Stevie?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you reach up and pull the spikes out while we go down? I got one hand for you and one hand to climb, but-”

“Course, Buck.”

Bucky climbed down fast and sloppy, more careless than he’d ever been. Didn’t check his foothold before letting go the wall and reaching for the next handhold, didn’t dare look up or down. Truth be told, he couldn’t tear his eyes from the burning light of Steve’s face, could barely hear the yells of the soldiers above them or the clatter of pitons falling below them over the rushing of blood in his ears. He felt the his skin heat where Steve touched him, smelled the burning wool of his sleeve, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t think about anything but Stevie, his Stevie, alive after all—

And almost before the climb had begun, it was over, and they stood on solid ground again, under the full, blinding light of noonday sun. All around them, people covered their eyes against a brightness unknown for years, but Bucky paid them no mind. He had eyes only for Steve, and he stared dumbly at his friend, at beautiful, magical, firecracker—

“Bucky!” Steve sounded exasperated, like maybe he’d been repeating himself.

“Huh?”

“You’re hurt. Bad hurt, your arm, it’s all-”

Bucky looked down, surprised. The smell of burnt wool had been replaced by the smell of burnt flesh, and he could see his own muscle, his own bone, charred and smoking.

“I did that, oh, oh shit, Bucky, I’m so sorry, you should have left me there, you god damn-”

“Stevie… you’re the sun.”

Bucky felt his heart crack in relief when Steve rolled his eyes just like he used to, huge and obvious and just fed up. “Of course I am, you mook.”

“Your ma said—she said—” but he couldn’t finish that thought, not with Steve in front of him, shining and more obviously, obscenely alive than anyone else could ever be.

Steve face softened, and his voice was barely more than a whisper. “She was wrong, huh, Buck? But let’s get you to a doctor and we can worry about all that later.”

It hit him, then, what they were up against. He had _stolen_ the _sun_. From the man who might as well be a war god, of all fucking people. “Yeah, yeah, Stevie. My friend—Widow—she can hide us. She’ll know what to do.”

*

Bucky woke up to the welcome sight of Steve’s wide, worried eyes. “Calm down, buddy, I’m here. It’s fine, I’m fine.”

Steve huffed out an angry breath but before he could start talking, a soft-eyed man with messy brown hair said, “You are now, James-”

“Bucky.”

“-Bucky, but you weren’t for some time there, so you might allow your friend his worry.”

“You let me burn off your _arm_ , you fucking stupid-”

Bucky forgot to listen to Stevie’s little tirade when he looked down at himself. The burnt and blacked mess of his left arm was gone, replaced by shining silver steel. “Bet you won’t be able to mess up this one no matter how hot you get, you little punk.”

Steve shut his mouth abruptly and blushed red as the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> * The reference to “ivory and gold” is an obvious homage to _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , and while I find the clear Aryan overtones troubling at best, I still think that particular quote is one of the most romantic things anyone has ever said about another person, fictional or no.


End file.
